It's a discussion I intend to save for another day, but when I define retro, there's some cornerstones that were very indicative of the time. Light gun games are one of them. And Virtua Cop was one of the more entertaining ones and I spent literal pounds of quarters. Sega's AM2 team defined an era for me as a video game fan in my early teens, and the Saturn was an amazing supplement for arcade quality titles in the home. Unless you were one of the 47 kids who were blessed with an irresponsible amount of wealth and owned a Neo Geo (still a golden goose in my retro collecting).

 Light gun games in general are very satisfying. Providing you don't have any calibration problems with the hardware, these are incredibly user friendly stress relieving games where you feel encouraged to challenge yourself. This was before achievements were a thing, we'd often set up personal goals or bests to see if others could top it. Like shot streaks, no damage runs, or highest accuracy. Speaking of the hardware, the Sega Stunner is my favorite gun peripheral. Given my previous experiences involved the Super Scope 6, a device that hated batteries, and many NES Zappers that have aged poorly, the Stunner is very sturdy and feels good in the hands. A little meaty, but a lot lighter than it looks. Certainly an improvement over the Menacer.

Virtua Cop is near arcade perfect, the resolution and textures aren't quite as sharp, but it looks like they did a touch of remodeling on the characters similar to Virtua Fighter Remix and it make the skin look a little more defined. Don't quote me on that, mere speculation on my part. Spouting wrong Sega facts will get me "ACKTUALLY'd" on the internet again. As most light gun games go, you select from three stages, each varying in escalating difficulty, meaning sharpening one's reflexes and intuition becomes paramount. Of course, when you get in the heat of the moment, one of those pesky hostages will pop up, beg you to not shoot them, but instinct has taken over and might make what the police report may read as an "oopsie".

I miss these kinds of games, and hoped that motion controls on the Wii, Wii U, or Kinect would've seen a resurgence in the medium for this kind of arcade action. Other than some faint interest in House of the Dead Overkill, it didn't seem to take off. I haven't given VR a true chance, perhaps there's something in there that serves as a spiritual successor. So Sega, in the off chance that you're reading this, I would oblige if you entertained the idea of showcasing Virtua Cop with some kind of comeback. Games like Virtua Cop challenged a slightly different facet of your senses, and any time I see a cabinet in a fair or arcade, I have to drop what I'm doing to give it a go. If anything, a new generation of light gun games in today's age will breathe life into the old question regarding the medium, "will they sell it if I shoot them in the balls?"